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Replanting logged forests with diverse seedlings accelerates restoration

378 points by myshpa 3y ago

bluerooibos 3y ago
Who would have thought that replicating nature would yield the best results... The Miyawaki method is probably relevant to this discussion - https://www.creatingtomorrowsforests.co.uk/blog/the-miyawaki-method-for-creating-forests https://www.creatingtomorrowsforests.co.uk/blog/the-miyawaki...
- deleted 3y ago
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- nxobject 3y ago
  Another text I really love as well that focuses on teaching "applied ecology" is "Garden Revolution" by Weaner and Christopher. Since I've never taken biology of any sort, it was a good primer on things like ecological succession (in temperate climates), parameters of plants that might completement each other, etc. The authors have worked on large-scale restoration and sustainable landscaping projects, and it shows.
swader999 3y ago
The other way to do this is to leave seed trees on the block in addition to replanting with 3-4 other species. They do this in British Columbia now. When a block is logged, cones from that block are taken to regrow seedlings to plant there. It doesn't work as well if you try to seed from different elevations or far away areas.
ccooffee 3y ago
Someone logged a 500 hectare plot in Borneo. They split this into 125 sections and planted 0, 1, 4, or 16 "tree species that are frequently targeted for logging". After 20 years, satellite imagery shows that the more tree species you planted, the more recovered the land appears to be. I'm left wondering: 1. Why did they plant only tree species that are frequently targeted for logging? This makes the whole experiment very suspect. The linked article talks a lot about restoring forests, but why restrict the tree species to those that are profitable to log? 2. Is the satellite imagery actually representative of on-the-ground truth? A lot of logging land in western America gets replanted with logging-friendly trees in very regular grid patterns. These areas may look like forests from satellites (or to uninformed ground-level visitors), but the regrown tree farms do not behave like forests. The dense growth crowds out the ground-level plants, which in turn makes the entire tree farm a poor habitat for local fauna. If your goal is to grow more trees for lumber, tree farms are great. But I'm not sure the claims about "forest restoration" are honest/true here.
- liotier 3y ago
  Between clear-cut horror and ideal pristine old growth, there is a world of managed forests that fix carbon with an economically sustainable model. Not the best biodiversity but mixing sixteen species makes the initiative top tear already.
  - unglaublich 3y ago
    And generally, these forests are subdivided in plots of different 'age'. Every year, they will log 1/20th of the forest or so. The wildlife might be able to move from an affected area to one of the bordering areas. In fact, this model comes quite close to natural destruction of forests, where old trees would fall over, and wildfires would rage. The only difference is that the process is not random, but nicely planned and managed to allow _humans_ instead of _wildfires and storms_ to reap the full-grown timber.
- soperj 3y ago
  > 1. Why did they plant only tree species that are frequently targeted for logging? This makes the whole experiment very suspect. The linked article talks a lot about restoring forests, but why restrict the tree species to those that are profitable to log? Because the whole point of tree planting is forest management. That's why whenever there's a forest fire they spray it with glyphosate so that other trees don't grow, then they plant GMO trees that can live in glyphosate doused soil.
  - drone 3y ago
    Glyphosate is not soil active, so there are no "trees that can grow in glyphosate-doused soil." The primary reason for broad herbicide treatment as part of site prep is to avoid low-value, or ecologically opportunist species that thrive in disturbed soil/land, and prevent either the target species from growing, or create an environment which lacks the diversity necessary for the region. For example, sweetgum, huisache, black locust, chinese tallow (as examples from specific regions in the US), will all take over and completely dominate a deforested section and prevent oaks, pines, etc. and appropriate forb for wildlife without consistent, ongoing burns. FWIW, there are no "trees which are GMOd to live with glyphosate application" - you're thinking non-tree crops. Nearly every softwood and hardwood tree is susceptible to damage from Glyphosate.
rgrieselhuber 3y ago
Eventually people will figure out that monoculture was a horrible and anti-nature idea.
- grlass 3y ago
  The issues from the Great Green Wall [1] are worth looking at [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Great_Green_Wall_(China) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Great_Green_Wall_(China)
- deleted 3y ago
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- hasmanean 3y ago
  I’ve heard monoculture forests are worse for forest fires too. Having dead decaying logs on the forest floor probably helps because fungi are naturally fire resistant.
iamcasen 3y ago
How is this not a complete and obvious no-brainer? As advanced as our culture is in some ways, it is clearly quite idiotic in many other ways.
- wredue 3y ago
  It always helps having raw experimentation on your side.
- deleted 3y ago
  [deleted]
jvm___ 3y ago
The Curiosity Daily podcast had a related topic this past week. There are plans to plant 1 billion (or 1 Trillion) trees at various levels of government (WEF is the 1Trillion number). So researchers went out to try to find saplings from local nurseries that could supply the diversity of trees that would be needed. They found that less than half the nurseries could supply saplings - and very few were 'climate change friendly' saplings, most were decorative or other non-climate-friendly trees. “Plans to plant billions of trees threatened by massive undersupply of seedlings.” by Joshua Brown. 2023. https://www.uvm.edu/news/story/plans-plant-billions-trees-threatened-massive-undersupply-seedlings https://www.uvm.edu/news/story/plans-plant-billions-trees-th... “A lack of ecological diversity in forest nurseries limits the achievement of tree-planting objectives in response to global change.” by Peter W. Clark, et al. 2023. https://academic.oup.com/bioscience/advance-article-abstract/doi/10.1093/biosci/biad049/7223625?redirectedFrom=fulltext&login=false https://academic.oup.com/bioscience/advance-article-abstract... “Trees Help Fight Climate Change.” Arbor Day Foundation. N.d. “Benefits of Planting Trees.” Tree Advisory Board. N.D. https://www.bgky.org/tree/benefits https://www.bgky.org/tree/benefits
- mym1990 3y ago
  Can you expand on the difference between climate change friendly and non climate change friendly trees, for the noobs like me?
  - jvm___ 3y ago
    The money is in growing saplings of white-pine, the ones commercial re-planters will buy - because they grow fast and can be turned into toilet paper in 25(?) years. Growing saplings of local 'slow' growing, non-harvestable species doesn't make you $$$. "In essence, forest nurseries tended to maintain a limited inventory of a select few species, electing to prioritize those valued for commercial timber production over species required for conservation, ecological restoration, or climate adaptation." "Yet, in their 20-state survey, the team only found two tree nurseries that had inventory of red spruce, a species from which many millions of seedlings are needed to meet restoration goals. “Remarkably, only 800 red spruce seedlings were commercially available for purchase in 2022,” the team reports in their new Bioscience study, “—enough to reforest less than one hectare.”
hanniabu 3y ago
This seems pretty obvious, I'm amazed this is coming as a surprise
- bradly 3y ago
  It isn't mentioned in this article but one example of this is deforestation of the a Eastern White Pine. They quickly realized the problems deforestation at that scale and attempted to build pack the forests quickly by use a very similar, but much faster growing pine. Turns out that was a really bad idea.
- sp332 3y ago
  No one said it was a surprise. It's a demonstration.
erikhopf 3y ago
There are companies like Terraformation that have been doing this for a while. Beyond the biodiversity angle, seed banking seems to be very important to the long term success of regrowth projects.
- greenie_beans 3y ago
  i invested in their republic.co fundraising: https://republic.com/terraformation https://republic.com/terraformation but then did more research, because i've been interested in forestry for a while and was geniunely curious and wanted to understand my investment more. i pulled my investment once i learned that these sort of projects don't actually work. terraformation targets land in areas that aren't meant to be forests. also decided to pull it because i don't completely understand the space. (sure, "planting trees will solve climate change" seems easy enough and makes me feel good because "i'm planting trees!" but nah, not really, let's maybe rethink this...this is coming from somebody who spends a lot of time in the woods and finds trees to be an important part of my life.) this person researches this space: https://scholar.google.com/citations?user=DbjysqUAAAAJ&hl=en https://scholar.google.com/citations?user=DbjysqUAAAAJ&hl=en this is one of the bigger studies: https://scholar.google.com/citations?view_op=view_citation&hl=en&user=DbjysqUAAAAJ&citation_for_view=DbjysqUAAAAJ:hFOr9nPyWt4C https://scholar.google.com/citations?view_op=view_citation&h...
  - elsewhen 3y ago
    In reading the paper, I don’t think that you can conclude that tree planting programs don’t work, just that the details matter.
    - greenie_beans 3y ago
      correct. they work when they're done in the right place, like where forests existed historically.
atourgates 3y ago
I did a quick look to see if this only worked in tropical forests, or if this would be true in, say, Western North American forests. I didn't really find an answer. A study[1] in Virgina found that planting multiple varieties of trees was beneficial because it allowed the variety that was most suitable for that location to thrive, and survive problems that might affect other varieties. A study[2] in Washington State tested a couple varities of common conifers planted in pairs, and found more conventional "trees are affected by competition" result. This study[3] performed in the inter-mountain West found that some conifers _may_ benefit from being mixed with aspens, but didn't seem nearly as conclusive as the Borneo study. If anyone can find a more conclusive study about temperate Western forests, I'd love to see it. [1] https://www.si.edu/newsdesk/releases/tree-species-diversity-increases-likelihood-planting-success https://www.si.edu/newsdesk/releases/tree-species-diversity-... [2] https://cdnsciencepub.com/doi/10.1139/X09-040 https://cdnsciencepub.com/doi/10.1139/X09-040 [3] https://besjournals.onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/full/10.1111/1365-2745.13709 https://besjournals.onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/full/10.1111...
- myshpa 3y ago
  > If anyone can find a more conclusive study about temperate Western forests, I'd love to see it. I didn't. But there's no reason why it shouldn't work there. https://www.scmp.com/news/china/science/article/2167048/forest-study-china-finds-mix-trees-can-absorb-twice-much-carbon https://www.scmp.com/news/china/science/article/2167048/fore... Forest study in China finds mix of trees can absorb twice as much carbon as areas with one species More than 60 scientists from China, Switzerland and Germany were involved in the research, testing a hypothesis based on observations in the field. “The study shows that forests are not all the same when it comes to climate protection – monocultures achieve not even half of the desired ecosystem service,” Schmid said. “The full level of mitigation of global warming can only be achieved with a mix of species. In addition, species-rich forests also contribute towards protecting the world’s threatened biodiversity.” Such forests were also less vulnerable to disease and extreme weather events, which are becoming increasingly frequent as a result of climate change, Schmid said.
  - rolph 3y ago
darklycan51 3y ago
I don't understand why loggers clear entire sections of forests instead of leaving every hectare x amount of old "mother" trees
- BengineeringELM 3y ago
  In general they do leave "seed trees " but they only need as few as 3 trees per acre to effect the spaces mix in the regrowth. Those 3 trees aren't nessesary though. The Forrest floor is loaded with seeds that can survive longer than a decade waiting for the right time to germinate. In many cases the sunlight hitting the ground is the trigger they need, and in most cases a "clear cut" will be a 9 year old forest 10 years later.
karaterobot 3y ago
I'm not an expert, but I had thought that observing that monocultures created a weak forest ecosystem was one of the foundational concepts behind modern forestry—a centuries old discipline. This seems like an obvious corollary to that. I would have assumed it yesterday, before reading this article, and I assume most people would have thought the same. Again, I'm not an expert, so I'm likely missing something. And sometimes you just need a study to provide evidence for common sense.
- kderbyma 3y ago
  it's a blinding glimpse of the obvious
- anon84873628 3y ago
  Just one of those situations where science needs to get the ducks in a row and ensure incontrovertible proof.
- Cthulhu_ 3y ago
  Yeah, this is one of those "well duh" headlines, doesn't take a scientist to figure it out.
AnimalMuppet 3y ago
Or, to say it in reverse: Replanting logged forests with a monoculture hinders restoration. Putting it this way emphasizes what "normal" is.
WalterBright 3y ago
This is not surprising in the least. Also, genetic variety within a particular species should help a lot.
- deleted 3y ago
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CatWChainsaw 3y ago
If you own property with a lawn, do what you can as well with native plants for native pollinators.
salynchnew 3y ago
Shouldn't be surprising. The Miyawaki method shows success when a few principles are followed: -Planting naturally-occurring communities of plants, not monocultures (bonus points for including microfauna and soil microbes) -Planting locations are semi-randomized, with room for plants to expand and reseed. -Stands of trees are protected/watered for first 3-5 years. -Local communities are engaged and have a vested interest in protecting/maintaining stands of trees for the first few years. https://www.jstor.org/stable/24577389?mag=the-miyawaki-method-a-better-way-to-build-forests https://www.jstor.org/stable/24577389?mag=the-miyawaki-metho...
atoav 3y ago
My brothers MA thesis was about comparing the multiple model forests that have been planted throughout the EUs different climate zones (I didn't even know such a thing existed, bur it makes sense). His focus was looking at resilience against weather, insects etc. and mixed forests fared significantly better throughout all climate zones. As someone from the alps, a thing that should not be forgotten is how important a diverse tree structure can be for stabilizing soil, especially in mountain areas. And those areas can expect more extreme wheater conditions due to climate change, especially in the form of rain. Mudslides can become a real economic factor in such regions. Mixed forests are also better at stabilizing the soil because the root structures are less uniform. So the best moment to plant mixed forests is 20 years ago, the next best is now. Edit: For non-wood people, the reason why there aren't more mixed woods is that harvesting is easier in non-mixed environments (although that also has changed with newer methods and tech).
- chiefalchemist 3y ago
  > His focus was looking at resilience against weather, insects etc. and mixed forests fared significantly better throughout all climate zones. It makes sense. The diversity means that while one genera is suffering from some Hostility X or Y (e.g., insects) the others might not be, or at least as much so. Diversity is a form of hedging your bet.
  - Lutger 3y ago
    Hedging your bet is one part, another big one is creating habitat for predators. Pests often arise in monocultures because there just isn't any suitable habitat for the organisms that eat them. A part of that habitat is food, so ironically and perhaps counter intuitively, a good agro-ecological practice is to farm your pests. This provides a source of food (but not in your main crop) to attract the predators that you want to help control the pest. This is the reversal of a negative spiral where you control pests by killing them, thus preventing predators to settle in your land and making it a very nice place for the pests to multiple. And they will, because you can never kill them all - unless you keep using massive amounts of pesticides. This is why monocultures often need a lot of pesticides to work, its very hard to do without.
BengineeringELM 3y ago
Check out the silvicultural guide for the northeast: https://www.fs.usda.gov/research/treesearch/45874 https://www.fs.usda.gov/research/treesearch/45874 It turns out most logging in the northeast already yields a diverse ecosystem as quickly as the next year, and no planting is nessesary. Forresters can target different species mixes in the regeneration by using different harvesting methods. Pretty cool stuff.
cookiengineer 3y ago
I can recommend reading about the reforestation laws in Germany. Why? Germany was running out of forests to harvest around 1400, and the oldest law that is still in effect is from 1442 (Forstordnung of the Bistum Speyer) . All forests in Germany are artificially created, and there are a lot of things involved to make this happen. We have rain plans that limit the amount of how much water farmers are allowed to use which are on higher altitudes on the mountains/plains. We have the Wasserwirt which is responsible to flood the farming plains regularly (completely under water), and redistribute their water "lakes" to other fields down to lower altitudes. We also have the Foerster whose job is to decide which trees to harvest, which ones need to be replaced, and what to do with the dead trees. All of those variables are planned carefully and involve a lot of data, especially the water flooding and rain plan parts. There are a lot of nice documentaries about this on arte and NDR in case anyone is interested about these kind of topics. Also about corruption and the forest mafia in Romania, which is a huge discussion topic in Brussels for years, because Ikea and other furniture producers down the line keep buying illegally harvested wood.
- prennert 3y ago
  One thing that struck me when visiting Germany in summer was how logging seemed to be selective, leaving much of the trees standing. I passed a forest by train and despite logs piled up next to it, and logging vehicles around, you could not tell from the train that the forest was being logged. While in Scotland, if they harvest a forest, they do it like harvesting wheat. They just leave a wasteland of stumps behind. Looks horrible, must be bad for the ecosystem and I am wondering if mudslides will be more common now, since a lot of forest is on hillsides.
- ovih 3y ago
  Fascinating context, thank you for sharing! Some other countries whose history has something to say about reforestation/afforestation: Australia, South Korea, UK
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meerita 3y ago
As a reflection of my passion for plants, every time I trek through a forest, I gather seeds and nurture sprouts from them, replanting them each year. Last year, I successfully planted 25 trees, and over the course of four years, I've planted approximately 100. This year, in the upcoming spring, I aspire to plant 50 more.
WaitWaitWha 3y ago
"...plots replanted with a mixture of 16 native tree species showed faster recovery of canopy area and total tree biomass, compared to plots replanted with 4 or just 1 species. However, even plots that had been replanted with 1 tree species were recovering more quickly than those left to restore naturally." I am not trying to be obtuse or misanthropic. Please, someone can explain why was this study needed? Was there some hidden new discovery? Asking, because if I walk down the dirt road and ask any farmer, they will tell me, if I sow seed in a field, it will grow faster, than I leave it to nature's chance. If I sow mixed crops (crop & cover crop), I will get potentially better yield. I thought it was a specific species of trees thing, but the paper does not seem to be stating it.
husamia 3y ago
"diverse" is the key here and I doubt most understand what it really means..

378 points by myshpa 3y ago

Who would have thought that replicating nature would yield the best results... The Miyawaki method is probably relevant to this discussion - https://www.creatingtomorrowsforests.co.uk/blog/the-miyawaki-method-for-creating-forests https://www.creatingtomorrowsforests.co.uk/blog/the-miyawaki...

deleted 3y ago
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nxobject 3y ago
Another text I really love as well that focuses on teaching "applied ecology" is "Garden Revolution" by Weaner and Christopher. Since I've never taken biology of any sort, it was a good primer on things like ecological succession (in temperate climates), parameters of plants that might completement each other, etc. The authors have worked on large-scale restoration and sustainable landscaping projects, and it shows.

swader999 3y ago

The other way to do this is to leave seed trees on the block in addition to replanting with 3-4 other species. They do this in British Columbia now. When a block is logged, cones from that block are taken to regrow seedlings to plant there. It doesn't work as well if you try to seed from different elevations or far away areas.

ccooffee 3y ago

Someone logged a 500 hectare plot in Borneo. They split this into 125 sections and planted 0, 1, 4, or 16 "tree species that are frequently targeted for logging". After 20 years, satellite imagery shows that the more tree species you planted, the more recovered the land appears to be. I'm left wondering: 1. Why did they plant only tree species that are frequently targeted for logging? This makes the whole experiment very suspect. The linked article talks a lot about restoring forests, but why restrict the tree species to those that are profitable to log? 2. Is the satellite imagery actually representative of on-the-ground truth? A lot of logging land in western America gets replanted with logging-friendly trees in very regular grid patterns. These areas may look like forests from satellites (or to uninformed ground-level visitors), but the regrown tree farms do not behave like forests. The dense growth crowds out the ground-level plants, which in turn makes the entire tree farm a poor habitat for local fauna. If your goal is to grow more trees for lumber, tree farms are great. But I'm not sure the claims about "forest restoration" are honest/true here.

liotier 3y ago
Between clear-cut horror and ideal pristine old growth, there is a world of managed forests that fix carbon with an economically sustainable model. Not the best biodiversity but mixing sixteen species makes the initiative top tear already.
- unglaublich 3y ago
  And generally, these forests are subdivided in plots of different 'age'. Every year, they will log 1/20th of the forest or so. The wildlife might be able to move from an affected area to one of the bordering areas. In fact, this model comes quite close to natural destruction of forests, where old trees would fall over, and wildfires would rage. The only difference is that the process is not random, but nicely planned and managed to allow _humans_ instead of _wildfires and storms_ to reap the full-grown timber.
soperj 3y ago
> 1. Why did they plant only tree species that are frequently targeted for logging? This makes the whole experiment very suspect. The linked article talks a lot about restoring forests, but why restrict the tree species to those that are profitable to log? Because the whole point of tree planting is forest management. That's why whenever there's a forest fire they spray it with glyphosate so that other trees don't grow, then they plant GMO trees that can live in glyphosate doused soil.
- drone 3y ago
  Glyphosate is not soil active, so there are no "trees that can grow in glyphosate-doused soil." The primary reason for broad herbicide treatment as part of site prep is to avoid low-value, or ecologically opportunist species that thrive in disturbed soil/land, and prevent either the target species from growing, or create an environment which lacks the diversity necessary for the region. For example, sweetgum, huisache, black locust, chinese tallow (as examples from specific regions in the US), will all take over and completely dominate a deforested section and prevent oaks, pines, etc. and appropriate forb for wildlife without consistent, ongoing burns. FWIW, there are no "trees which are GMOd to live with glyphosate application" - you're thinking non-tree crops. Nearly every softwood and hardwood tree is susceptible to damage from Glyphosate.

rgrieselhuber 3y ago

Eventually people will figure out that monoculture was a horrible and anti-nature idea.

grlass 3y ago
The issues from the Great Green Wall [1] are worth looking at [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Great_Green_Wall_(China) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Great_Green_Wall_(China)
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hasmanean 3y ago
I’ve heard monoculture forests are worse for forest fires too. Having dead decaying logs on the forest floor probably helps because fungi are naturally fire resistant.

iamcasen 3y ago

How is this not a complete and obvious no-brainer? As advanced as our culture is in some ways, it is clearly quite idiotic in many other ways.

wredue 3y ago
It always helps having raw experimentation on your side.
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jvm___ 3y ago

The Curiosity Daily podcast had a related topic this past week. There are plans to plant 1 billion (or 1 Trillion) trees at various levels of government (WEF is the 1Trillion number). So researchers went out to try to find saplings from local nurseries that could supply the diversity of trees that would be needed. They found that less than half the nurseries could supply saplings - and very few were 'climate change friendly' saplings, most were decorative or other non-climate-friendly trees. “Plans to plant billions of trees threatened by massive undersupply of seedlings.” by Joshua Brown. 2023. https://www.uvm.edu/news/story/plans-plant-billions-trees-threatened-massive-undersupply-seedlings https://www.uvm.edu/news/story/plans-plant-billions-trees-th... “A lack of ecological diversity in forest nurseries limits the achievement of tree-planting objectives in response to global change.” by Peter W. Clark, et al. 2023. https://academic.oup.com/bioscience/advance-article-abstract/doi/10.1093/biosci/biad049/7223625?redirectedFrom=fulltext&login=false https://academic.oup.com/bioscience/advance-article-abstract... “Trees Help Fight Climate Change.” Arbor Day Foundation. N.d. “Benefits of Planting Trees.” Tree Advisory Board. N.D. https://www.bgky.org/tree/benefits https://www.bgky.org/tree/benefits

mym1990 3y ago
Can you expand on the difference between climate change friendly and non climate change friendly trees, for the noobs like me?
- jvm___ 3y ago
  The money is in growing saplings of white-pine, the ones commercial re-planters will buy - because they grow fast and can be turned into toilet paper in 25(?) years. Growing saplings of local 'slow' growing, non-harvestable species doesn't make you $$$. "In essence, forest nurseries tended to maintain a limited inventory of a select few species, electing to prioritize those valued for commercial timber production over species required for conservation, ecological restoration, or climate adaptation." "Yet, in their 20-state survey, the team only found two tree nurseries that had inventory of red spruce, a species from which many millions of seedlings are needed to meet restoration goals. “Remarkably, only 800 red spruce seedlings were commercially available for purchase in 2022,” the team reports in their new Bioscience study, “—enough to reforest less than one hectare.”

hanniabu 3y ago

This seems pretty obvious, I'm amazed this is coming as a surprise

bradly 3y ago
It isn't mentioned in this article but one example of this is deforestation of the a Eastern White Pine. They quickly realized the problems deforestation at that scale and attempted to build pack the forests quickly by use a very similar, but much faster growing pine. Turns out that was a really bad idea.
sp332 3y ago
No one said it was a surprise. It's a demonstration.

erikhopf 3y ago

There are companies like Terraformation that have been doing this for a while. Beyond the biodiversity angle, seed banking seems to be very important to the long term success of regrowth projects.

greenie_beans 3y ago
i invested in their republic.co fundraising: https://republic.com/terraformation https://republic.com/terraformation but then did more research, because i've been interested in forestry for a while and was geniunely curious and wanted to understand my investment more. i pulled my investment once i learned that these sort of projects don't actually work. terraformation targets land in areas that aren't meant to be forests. also decided to pull it because i don't completely understand the space. (sure, "planting trees will solve climate change" seems easy enough and makes me feel good because "i'm planting trees!" but nah, not really, let's maybe rethink this...this is coming from somebody who spends a lot of time in the woods and finds trees to be an important part of my life.) this person researches this space: https://scholar.google.com/citations?user=DbjysqUAAAAJ&hl=en https://scholar.google.com/citations?user=DbjysqUAAAAJ&hl=en this is one of the bigger studies: https://scholar.google.com/citations?view_op=view_citation&hl=en&user=DbjysqUAAAAJ&citation_for_view=DbjysqUAAAAJ:hFOr9nPyWt4C https://scholar.google.com/citations?view_op=view_citation&h...
- elsewhen 3y ago
  In reading the paper, I don’t think that you can conclude that tree planting programs don’t work, just that the details matter.
  - greenie_beans 3y ago
    correct. they work when they're done in the right place, like where forests existed historically.

atourgates 3y ago

I did a quick look to see if this only worked in tropical forests, or if this would be true in, say, Western North American forests. I didn't really find an answer. A study[1] in Virgina found that planting multiple varieties of trees was beneficial because it allowed the variety that was most suitable for that location to thrive, and survive problems that might affect other varieties. A study[2] in Washington State tested a couple varities of common conifers planted in pairs, and found more conventional "trees are affected by competition" result. This study[3] performed in the inter-mountain West found that some conifers _may_ benefit from being mixed with aspens, but didn't seem nearly as conclusive as the Borneo study. If anyone can find a more conclusive study about temperate Western forests, I'd love to see it. [1] https://www.si.edu/newsdesk/releases/tree-species-diversity-increases-likelihood-planting-success https://www.si.edu/newsdesk/releases/tree-species-diversity-... [2] https://cdnsciencepub.com/doi/10.1139/X09-040 https://cdnsciencepub.com/doi/10.1139/X09-040 [3] https://besjournals.onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/full/10.1111/1365-2745.13709 https://besjournals.onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/full/10.1111...

myshpa 3y ago
> If anyone can find a more conclusive study about temperate Western forests, I'd love to see it. I didn't. But there's no reason why it shouldn't work there. https://www.scmp.com/news/china/science/article/2167048/forest-study-china-finds-mix-trees-can-absorb-twice-much-carbon https://www.scmp.com/news/china/science/article/2167048/fore... Forest study in China finds mix of trees can absorb twice as much carbon as areas with one species More than 60 scientists from China, Switzerland and Germany were involved in the research, testing a hypothesis based on observations in the field. “The study shows that forests are not all the same when it comes to climate protection – monocultures achieve not even half of the desired ecosystem service,” Schmid said. “The full level of mitigation of global warming can only be achieved with a mix of species. In addition, species-rich forests also contribute towards protecting the world’s threatened biodiversity.” Such forests were also less vulnerable to disease and extreme weather events, which are becoming increasingly frequent as a result of climate change, Schmid said.
- rolph 3y ago

darklycan51 3y ago

I don't understand why loggers clear entire sections of forests instead of leaving every hectare x amount of old "mother" trees

BengineeringELM 3y ago
In general they do leave "seed trees " but they only need as few as 3 trees per acre to effect the spaces mix in the regrowth. Those 3 trees aren't nessesary though. The Forrest floor is loaded with seeds that can survive longer than a decade waiting for the right time to germinate. In many cases the sunlight hitting the ground is the trigger they need, and in most cases a "clear cut" will be a 9 year old forest 10 years later.

karaterobot 3y ago

I'm not an expert, but I had thought that observing that monocultures created a weak forest ecosystem was one of the foundational concepts behind modern forestry—a centuries old discipline. This seems like an obvious corollary to that. I would have assumed it yesterday, before reading this article, and I assume most people would have thought the same. Again, I'm not an expert, so I'm likely missing something. And sometimes you just need a study to provide evidence for common sense.

kderbyma 3y ago
it's a blinding glimpse of the obvious
anon84873628 3y ago
Just one of those situations where science needs to get the ducks in a row and ensure incontrovertible proof.
Cthulhu_ 3y ago
Yeah, this is one of those "well duh" headlines, doesn't take a scientist to figure it out.

AnimalMuppet 3y ago

Or, to say it in reverse: Replanting logged forests with a monoculture hinders restoration. Putting it this way emphasizes what "normal" is.

WalterBright 3y ago

This is not surprising in the least. Also, genetic variety within a particular species should help a lot.

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CatWChainsaw 3y ago

If you own property with a lawn, do what you can as well with native plants for native pollinators.

salynchnew 3y ago

Shouldn't be surprising. The Miyawaki method shows success when a few principles are followed: -Planting naturally-occurring communities of plants, not monocultures (bonus points for including microfauna and soil microbes) -Planting locations are semi-randomized, with room for plants to expand and reseed. -Stands of trees are protected/watered for first 3-5 years. -Local communities are engaged and have a vested interest in protecting/maintaining stands of trees for the first few years. https://www.jstor.org/stable/24577389?mag=the-miyawaki-method-a-better-way-to-build-forests https://www.jstor.org/stable/24577389?mag=the-miyawaki-metho...

atoav 3y ago

My brothers MA thesis was about comparing the multiple model forests that have been planted throughout the EUs different climate zones (I didn't even know such a thing existed, bur it makes sense). His focus was looking at resilience against weather, insects etc. and mixed forests fared significantly better throughout all climate zones. As someone from the alps, a thing that should not be forgotten is how important a diverse tree structure can be for stabilizing soil, especially in mountain areas. And those areas can expect more extreme wheater conditions due to climate change, especially in the form of rain. Mudslides can become a real economic factor in such regions. Mixed forests are also better at stabilizing the soil because the root structures are less uniform. So the best moment to plant mixed forests is 20 years ago, the next best is now. Edit: For non-wood people, the reason why there aren't more mixed woods is that harvesting is easier in non-mixed environments (although that also has changed with newer methods and tech).

chiefalchemist 3y ago
> His focus was looking at resilience against weather, insects etc. and mixed forests fared significantly better throughout all climate zones. It makes sense. The diversity means that while one genera is suffering from some Hostility X or Y (e.g., insects) the others might not be, or at least as much so. Diversity is a form of hedging your bet.
- Lutger 3y ago
  Hedging your bet is one part, another big one is creating habitat for predators. Pests often arise in monocultures because there just isn't any suitable habitat for the organisms that eat them. A part of that habitat is food, so ironically and perhaps counter intuitively, a good agro-ecological practice is to farm your pests. This provides a source of food (but not in your main crop) to attract the predators that you want to help control the pest. This is the reversal of a negative spiral where you control pests by killing them, thus preventing predators to settle in your land and making it a very nice place for the pests to multiple. And they will, because you can never kill them all - unless you keep using massive amounts of pesticides. This is why monocultures often need a lot of pesticides to work, its very hard to do without.

BengineeringELM 3y ago

Check out the silvicultural guide for the northeast: https://www.fs.usda.gov/research/treesearch/45874 https://www.fs.usda.gov/research/treesearch/45874 It turns out most logging in the northeast already yields a diverse ecosystem as quickly as the next year, and no planting is nessesary. Forresters can target different species mixes in the regeneration by using different harvesting methods. Pretty cool stuff.

cookiengineer 3y ago

I can recommend reading about the reforestation laws in Germany. Why? Germany was running out of forests to harvest around 1400, and the oldest law that is still in effect is from 1442 (Forstordnung of the Bistum Speyer) . All forests in Germany are artificially created, and there are a lot of things involved to make this happen. We have rain plans that limit the amount of how much water farmers are allowed to use which are on higher altitudes on the mountains/plains. We have the Wasserwirt which is responsible to flood the farming plains regularly (completely under water), and redistribute their water "lakes" to other fields down to lower altitudes. We also have the Foerster whose job is to decide which trees to harvest, which ones need to be replaced, and what to do with the dead trees. All of those variables are planned carefully and involve a lot of data, especially the water flooding and rain plan parts. There are a lot of nice documentaries about this on arte and NDR in case anyone is interested about these kind of topics. Also about corruption and the forest mafia in Romania, which is a huge discussion topic in Brussels for years, because Ikea and other furniture producers down the line keep buying illegally harvested wood.

prennert 3y ago
One thing that struck me when visiting Germany in summer was how logging seemed to be selective, leaving much of the trees standing. I passed a forest by train and despite logs piled up next to it, and logging vehicles around, you could not tell from the train that the forest was being logged. While in Scotland, if they harvest a forest, they do it like harvesting wheat. They just leave a wasteland of stumps behind. Looks horrible, must be bad for the ecosystem and I am wondering if mudslides will be more common now, since a lot of forest is on hillsides.
ovih 3y ago
Fascinating context, thank you for sharing! Some other countries whose history has something to say about reforestation/afforestation: Australia, South Korea, UK

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meerita 3y ago

As a reflection of my passion for plants, every time I trek through a forest, I gather seeds and nurture sprouts from them, replanting them each year. Last year, I successfully planted 25 trees, and over the course of four years, I've planted approximately 100. This year, in the upcoming spring, I aspire to plant 50 more.

WaitWaitWha 3y ago

"...plots replanted with a mixture of 16 native tree species showed faster recovery of canopy area and total tree biomass, compared to plots replanted with 4 or just 1 species. However, even plots that had been replanted with 1 tree species were recovering more quickly than those left to restore naturally." I am not trying to be obtuse or misanthropic. Please, someone can explain why was this study needed? Was there some hidden new discovery? Asking, because if I walk down the dirt road and ask any farmer, they will tell me, if I sow seed in a field, it will grow faster, than I leave it to nature's chance. If I sow mixed crops (crop & cover crop), I will get potentially better yield. I thought it was a specific species of trees thing, but the paper does not seem to be stating it.

husamia 3y ago

"diverse" is the key here and I doubt most understand what it really means..